[Fsfe-uk] EU swpat - Ag and Fish attempt 2

[Alex Hudson]

On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 16:36 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote:
> > Precisely.  So pushing an addition to an existing bill, long after
> > discussion for the bill closes and a day before the vote, they tag some
> > patent law into it hoping that the council won't know enough to question
> > it.
>  
> If I did this with a printer on a shopping trolly after I had been
> through the checkouts everyone would recognize it for what it is.
> 
> Somehow because it happens in a non-commercial setting those involved
> seem to think it is legitimate. It is theft of proper representation
> at least, surely?

The above isn't really a correct representation of what happened. The
Council think they have political agreement on the issue, so it doesn't
matter what committee it goes in front of - agriculture, fisheries,
silly walks, any of them. If it's a A-item it's adopted without
discussion or vote. There's nothing particularly underhanded or dodgy
about that - they already had a vote on the issue.

The problem the Council have is that the agreement they think they have
is, in reality, non-existent. Sufficient countries now disagree that the
measure cannot be passed. Without political agreement, adding it as an
A-item (to any agenda) is obviously difficult. I think they know that if
there were further discussion, any agreement they had would be seen to
be non-existent.

What is encouraging is that there are countries standing against this
legislation - Poland and Holland - even though they are under a lot of
political pressure. It seems, though, that this Council deadlock will
only be resolved if the Parliament restart the process.. :/

Cheers,

Alex.